SA - KwaZulu Natal

In January, I spent a week with one of my digs mates, general all round hardcore chick Kate Comrie, at her family’s amazing farm near Howick. I’d promised to teach her to kayak, and it was a steep learning curve indeed – the waterfalls section of the Umzimkulu was her 2nd river ever, and was followed by an epic 2-day down Deepdale Gorge on the Unmkomaas River at high water.

At last year’s X-Fest we ended up not racing at all and just tripping the section twice on the Saturday and once on the Sunday. This year we had a similar plan and already Luke Longridge, Ernest Vosloo and I had agreed that the three of us would do this as last year’s sessions had been absolutely amazingly fun!

After our epic little Injusuthi trip it was time to get on the water again. Well, maybe not everyone and Dave had to unfortunately sit this one out as he had no boat! I felt for him and wished we had a spare boat for him to at least use as the level was looking very good.

The scene was set. Luke Longridge, Dave Joyce and I would be heading down to the Thrombi X-Fest armed with three green Fluid Solo’s; one large, one medium and one small. Our mission would take us first to the Injusuthi River, then the following day to either the Waterfall Section on the Umzimkulu or, water permitting, the Polela and finally then the X-Fest at Thrombosis Gorge itself. It was assured to be a super duper weekend and water levels were predicted to be up.

The Umkomazana is a river that you probably have never heard of. Perhaps you’ve read about it in the book Run the Rivers of Southern Africa or perhaps you’ve only heard of someone else running it, but chances are you know little about it and even after the reading the description you may be tempted to go in search elsewhere for more action. Mike and I decided to try this little river and even though the water level was very low we still had a great time and saw a lot of different types of birds and other wildlife.